But is it right to pay other peoples bills
Comments
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Only for the ones who never paid in the first place to do it again passing more costs to the ones who do already seems very fair not
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1 million families not paying their gas and electricity seems to indicate that there is a mayor issue going on here.
There has been an increased on people using food banks too:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9209/#:~:text=The%20DWP%20published%20statistics%20on,be%20increasing%20household%20food%20insecurity.In the UK,
2.8 million people were in households that used a food bank in 2023/24, representing 4% of the population, with rates of 8% for children and 4% for working-age adults
.
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This is a complex issue.
If people are genuinely struggling for food and energy despite working or getting the benefits they're entitled to, then I'm perfectly content with paying a bit extra on my bills to cover theirs.
But if people are choosing not to pay because of the weak excuse that 'others don't have to' then obviously I'm not happy paying for them.
As with most things in life, some people are in genuine difficulty, others are taking advantage for their own gain.
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I have to wonder how many of these people could save money on there tv packages mobile phone subscriptions for there kids the list of savings that people take for granted is endless food banks should be for the needy not the greedy
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I want all in need to receive support, but there does seem to be a sense of entitlement nowadays.
My bills get paid, then I see about living on the remainder.
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I guess more people in the last few years are currently choosing to keep their mobile contracts and tv plans at all costs.
- Rough sleeping in England rose by 20% in a year to 4,667 people in Autumn 2024. This figure is up 164% since 2010.
- Temporary accommodation is at a record high:The number of households in temporary accommodation in England reached a record 131,140 in March 2025, up 12% from a year ago.
- Child homelessness is rising:The number of children living in temporary accommodation has reached a record 169,050, and 11,540 households with children faced homelessness between January and March 2025 alone.
- Youth homelessness is a growing concern:An estimated 118,134 young people were homeless or at risk of homelessness in the UK in 2023-2024.
- "Hidden homelessness" is significant:A substantial number of people are "hidden homeless," living in squats, or "sofa surfing," and do not appear in official statistics. One London report estimated the hidden homeless population could be up to 13 times higher than official figures
Maybe and just maybe we have a poverty issue that no one wants to tackle and that’s inequality.
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Seems a bit extreme getting into debt just to keep up appearances to appreciate what you have you must first learn to live without sadly lacking nowadays
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Just to clarify, this new energy debt scheme isn’t a free for all, and it’s not ongoing bill support. It’s a one off plan to help certain households on means tested benefits who built up energy debt during the crisis (April 2022 to March 2024).
You won’t need to apply. Suppliers will contact eligible customers directly. But it’s not automatic. You’ll need to be making some effort to pay, or be willing to work with a debt advice charity. It’s aimed at those who’ve tried to engage and pay, not those who’ve ignored bills completely.
And yes, it’s funded by all customers, added to bills the same way the Warm Home Discount is. So if you’ve benefited from Warm Front or similar schemes, you’ve already seen how shared funding works. This is no different. It’s about stabilising the system and protecting the most vulnerable.
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So when these debts have been paid with help from all the payers not in debt will our energy bills go down I think the answer would be a big no
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Paying off the current debt won’t lower bills. If the £4.4 billion in unpaid energy debt isn’t sorted, suppliers will raise prices even more just to stay afloat, and that means higher bills for everyone.
When energy companies collapsed during the crisis, the government stepped in, but the cost didn’t vanish. It was quietly passed on to all of us through standing charges and hidden fees.
And that’s not all. Every bill includes green levies, charges for wind and solar projects, insulation grants for homes, and Warm Home Discount support for vulnerable households. These extras are built into every bill before you’ve even used a single unit of energy.
Now add carbon capture to the mix. The government is committing hundreds of billions to build carbon capture infrastructure, and much of that cost is being passed on to consumers. It’s meant to trap emissions from gas and biomass plants, but it’s expensive, unproven at scale, and already driving up electricity prices.
So unless all these extras are stripped out, and the system itself rebalanced, our bills aren’t coming down. Debt relief might stop things getting worse, but it won’t undo the layers of cost already locked in.
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It will be an ongoing situation. The £52 now, will carry on and it's not the bill payers problem for who don't or wont pay. We are all struggling with energy bills and if other people are, then they should get in touch with their energy company, it's their problem not ours.
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Whilst I appreciate your point the fact remains the uk has one of the highest electric prices in the world and to wipe off some peoples debt by making others pay it through there bills will only drive up the bills even more when the next crop run up debt just so the electric companies can add to there profits
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I pay my bills first before anything
electricity bill today for three months £201.52. Is hat a lot as on a fix tariff1 -
I agree, electric bills are extortionate. Nobody wants to see bills go up or feel like they are covering someone else’s debt. But suppliers cannot just ignore unpaid bills. They buy energy upfront, pay National Grid to move it, and hope we pay them back. If we do not, they still owe the full amount.
And when they collapse under the strain, as we saw with Bulb and other companies, we all end up footing the cost anyway, through standing charges and bailouts.
Octopus operated on just a 0.7 per cent margin. Retail suppliers are capped by Ofgem.
National Grid posted £1.44 billion profit last year, with a 100 per cent gross margin and no cap. They are the ones raking it in, not the domestic supplier.
As I said in my last post, we already pay £52 a year for green and infrastructure projects. They are asking for £5 per customer to clear the debt. To me, that is cheaper than letting suppliers go bust and paying for the fallout through standing charges and public bailouts.
So I am genuinely curious, how would you deal with it?
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Look up to where the real problem is !! No one in this country should be homeless hungry the wealth is being hoarded even stolen from us everybody taxed to the eyeballs centuries ago people didnt have to pay all this tax and bills this is man made by the elites council tax is a proven scam if they send you a court date they higher the court for the day and send someone from the council everything in this country is a money making racket everything dont see mps taking the burden oh no and we mere peasants argue about whats morally wrong or right they even tracking carbon footprints noting will ever be fair for any of us
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I am afraid I am old school can't afford it don't have it put the none payers on a prepayment card meter I am sure there are very few people who could not make savings of some description as for the companies that go bust I would assume the debt is passed on to the new supplier who in time pass it on to the public who do pay and so it goes on
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Prepayment meters, more expensive, quicker to cut you off, and still charging £300 a year just to sit there.
Suppliers collapse, and we all pay, through bailouts, standing charges, and margins that quietly creep up. So yes, I get the frustration. But saving a fiver a year while the system collapses, that is not thrift, that is financial incompetence.
Michael, since you are keen on old school budgeting advice, perhaps you could pass that memo to Rachel Reeves. She seems more comfortable reaching for a bailout than a balance sheet. The real waste is not in our homes, it is in the decisions made by the Treasury. They are the ones spending money they cannot afford, fuelling a crisis not just in utility bills but in food prices too.
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Old school budgeting advice is something people nowadays think is beneath them even more so when someone else has to pay for them to live beyond there means bringing up kids with brains and little common sense is working very well
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